Your 2018 Digital Marketing Plan
The Sprocket Report
Here’s a business resolution for the new year: Be PRO-active instead of RE-active in your digital marketing. Your effort will be repaid many times over – and it’s not that tricky to implement. Let’s get started!
You can find all kinds of templates online or you can create your own. A paper calendar is better than nothing, but using a computer program makes it so much easier to cut and paste links. Try starting with an Excel-type spreadsheet.
At the top of your spreadsheet, write out your business mission statement. After all, that’s the whole reason you do what you do.
Next, list specific goals you have for your digital marketing. “More profit” is not specific enough. Do you want to build brand awareness? Grow your email list? Generate leads for sales reps to follow up? Stick to just one or two realistic goals.
Try to keep your mission and goals in mind to influence your efforts whenever you write a blog or post on social media.
Now let’s sketch out a simple digital marketing plan by laying out the twelve months of 2018. Brainstorm a theme for each month, flavored, of course, by your mission and goals. Think holidays, seasons, your business’s anniversary, charitable events you’re involved with, events your business hosts, etc. You only need twelve themes, so this shouldn’t be too difficult.
For each month, plan to have a post on your website that you can send folks to from all of your other marketing outlets. A blog or news section on your site would be perfect, but if you don’t have that, you may have to be more creative. (Or get a news page for your website – ask us how!)
Plan when you want these twelve posts to post and when you want them written. For instance, if you want them posted on the first of the month, they’ll need to be written a few days before. Put those dates on your spreadsheet and on whatever task list or calendar you use so you don’t blow your deadlines.
Under each planned monthly post, list the digital marketing platforms you want to use such as LinkedIn, Facebook and so on. Here’s where you can get really granular, if you like that sort of thing, or keep it loose, if that’s more your style.
Each platform has its optimal posting times and frequency which you can learn from your own analytics and the reported research of marketing professionals. You can list each of the five Facebook posts per week that you plan to make or just jot down notes to remind you when you’re scheduling on the fly.
Let’s look at an example:
Our company is: XYZ Chiropractic
The company mission statement is: Preventing health issues before they start
Our marketing goal this year is: Grow brand awareness in 65-80 age range
The upcoming month is: February
This month’s marketing theme will be: Presidents Day
We will write one news post for our website about: President’s Day Special – Free chair message with every visit
Our social media marketing will be on these platforms:
- Facebook – 4 weekly posts: Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday evenings
- LinkedIn – 1 weekly post: Tuesday mornings
To hold readers’ interest, we’re going to mix up the social media content we post. Several posts will link back to our website article. A few posts will be shares from “Chiropractic Today” magazine. And a couple will be jokes or memes. We’ll try to relate them all to the theme such as: “Washington would have loved a neck massage after chewing with wooden teeth all day” or “If only Lincoln had relaxed with a free chair massage instead of going to the theatre.”
If multiple people are writing posts, it’s helpful to keep more detailed notes, but even a brief outline will be enough to organize your thoughts, spur your creativity and keep you on task. Breaking a year’s worth of marketing down into just 12 monthly themes makes it much easier to give your business an active digital presence. Check your analytics in a couple months and see the difference for yourself.
For folks who want more substantial digital marketing, or who can’t commit to even this 12-Theme plan, just give us a call to discuss your particular needs. We want to be a partner in your 2018 success story!
Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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